Searching for the Higgs

In this video, Fermilab scientist Don Lincoln describes the concept of how the search for the Higgs boson is accomplished. He also includes a brief explanation of the latest data revealed at CERN on Dec. 13. The detailed slides from the CERN results seminar are available here.

Feature

DuPage grant to FNA kick-starts new restoration effort

On Dec. 7, Rod Walton (left) and Ryan Campbell (middle) of FNA received a grant from Frank Hudetz (right), a trustee at the DuPage Community Foundation.

Fermilab Natural Areas (FNA) was awarded a $7,500 grant from the DuPage Community Foundation on Dec. 7. The grant will go toward the ongoing restoration of habitat within the main ring, with a particular focus on restoring the woodland savanna.

FNA hopes to remove the weedier trees, shrubs and invasive species that occupy nearly two-thirds of the 35-acre savanna. This will help restore the area to a diverse savanna ecosystem. Work will begin this winter.

Though many Fermilab employees and others volunteer with FNA, the nonprofit group is fiscally and organizationally separate from the laboratory. As FNA field project manager Ryan Campbell explained, Fermilab recognizes the value of natural spaces and wants to encourage the group.

“FNA is overall pretty excited about the grant,” he said. “We’ve been trying to get this funded for a while.”

FNA president Rod Walton emphasized the value of the area as a community asset.

“We want to use this as an opportunity to get volunteers involved and give not only employees but people in the region a sense of ownership of the natural areas,” Walton said.

The DuPage Community Foundation also gave 30 grants to other local nonprofit organizations within the areas of arts, culture, education, environment, health and human services.

To achieve its ecological goals, FNA is always seeking new members. Fermilab employees can also donate to FNA through payroll deductions. For more information on the group, click here.

—Brad Hooker

In the News

CERN closing in on ‘God particle’

From Chicago Sun-Times, Dec. 13, 2011

Scientists working on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN announced progress in the hunt for the Higgs boson Tuesday morning, narrowing the possibilities for where the particle might be found and pulling ahead of Fermilab’s Tevatron experiments in the race to discover the particle.

“As of today what we see is consistent with either background fluctuation or with the presence of the Standard Model Higgs boson,” said Guido Tonelli, spokesman for the CMS experiment at CERN, in slides presented to fellow physicists.

The Higgs boson — popularly dubbed the “God particle” — is the last remaining hypothesized particle in the Standard Model of physics that scientists have been unable to observe.

Higgs vs. hype: a mini-guide

From msnbc.com's Cosmic Log, Dec. 13, 2011

Physicists have revealed what they've found so far in their quest for the Higgs boson at Europe's Large Hadron Collider on Tuesday, after days of buildup that put the "God particle" on a par with Obi-Wan Kenobi and the Force. But the Higgs boson isn't a religious experience, and it won't help you destroy the Death Star. So what is the Higgs? And what do scientists know about it? Here's a small guide to the Large Hadron Collider's latest:

Why it's important: For decades, physicists have used a theory known as the Standard Model to explain the interactions of subatomic particles, and the theory works beautifully. It's guided our way through the world of nuclear power, television, microwave ovens and lasers.

CMS collaboration celebrates the success of 2011

Lothar Bauerdick, head of the CMS Center, wrote this week’s column.

Lothar Bauerdick

In all respects, 2011 was a hugely successful year for the LHC and the CMS experiment. Since January, the CMS collaboration has submitted 70 publications to the arXiv server. Over the course of the year, the experiment harvested 5.2 inverse femtobarns of collision data--five times the data to analyze compared with what was predicted a year ago. The CMS detector accumulated proton-proton collision data with a very high 91 percent efficiency. The quality of the data is very good, with an average fraction of operational channels per subsystem that is approaching 99 percent.

The first scientific results using the full data set of 2011 are now coming out. One of the most anticipated results using this vast new data set is, of course, the Higgs search. Our latest results were presented to the CERN Council and made public yesterday morning. These are beautiful achievements, and the experiments are closing in on the Higgs. To conclusively find or exclude the Higgs, the experiments will need another year of running.

Going into next year, we expect another large increase in the LHC data sample. Getting 15 inverse femtobarns in 2012 seems feasible. That would be enough to discover the Standard Model Higgs boson or to rule out its existence. The CMS collaboration would like the LHC accelerator to run at the increased beam energy of 8-TeV collision energy, and go from 50-nanosecond bunch spacing to 25 nanoseconds, thereby increasing the number of proton bunches in the accelerator. The 14 percent increase in energy would bring significant additional discovery reach. Running at 25-nanosecond bunch spacing would bring down the number of background interactions during each bunch crossing, which would help all LHC experiments to trigger interesting events more reliably. Both changes are feasible, and the exact running conditions will be decided at a meeting in Chamonix in a few months. Until then, there are more CMS results coming out every week!

Photo of the Day

Winter sunrise at Fermilab

On Dec. 1, Fermilab employee Mike McGee took this photograph of the sun rising over the east reflection pond in front of Wilson Hall.
Photo: Mike McGee, AD

Safety Update

ES&H weekly report, Dec. 13

This week's safety report, compiled by the Fermilab ES&H section, includes three injuries, one of which was recordable. An employee fell out of a van he was unloading, and he lost work time as a result of the injury, classifying the incident as DART. Another employee pinched his finger while transporting a pipe. He was wearing gloves, but required first-aid treatment. A third employee was hit in the face by an aluminum can while moving a cabinet. He received first-aid treatment.